My Favorite Psychic was hotter than Jersey Shore. Supposedly, Goldie hooked you up with dead loved ones. You never knew where she’d show up next.

Tonight it was Casa Vittore. If she came to our table, we were fucked.

She was getting closer. “Your husband?” she yelled at somebody else. “His name starts with a ‘J,’ right?”

Rudy still had no clue what was up: stoned, wearing shades at night. Better than his usual paranoid self. Idly, he picked up his fork, turned it over.

God, I love you, I thought. But sometimes he made me sick.

Five years, we’d been together. First, on the sneak, ‘cos he was married. To Lolly, a beast with bleached, spiky hair and three chins. He’d let Lolly walk all over him. She smacked him around, so he had a black eye, occasionally. He got used to wearing shades at night, back then.

Lolly bullied him, mercilessly. Shit, she even told him what to eat...

“Loll—” She sat next to Rudy, who backed away. “I’m getting lolly...Lolli-pop? You like lollipops?”

She was for real.

“What, hon?” Goldie looked over Rudy’s head. “What’cha say?”

“My name’s ‘Lolly,’ bitch!” his wife probably said. “And he don’t like lollipops. I won’t let him like them.”

Trembling, Rudy hid his face.

Suddenly, we were back in that room. Pink bed pillows we used, to smother Lolly. On her king-sized “princess” bed.

She fought back so savagely, it took both of us to restrain her. Both of us struggling to stay on top of her. On her chest, Rudy was like an alley cat, sucking life out of a huge baby. “Die!” he said, with this maniacal grin. “Die!” For the first time, I was scared of him.

Still, I helped him kill her.

We kept at it till her arms flopped. Till she stopped kicking those monstrous legs. Till she was finally, undeniably dead.

“Now,” he said, smiling. “I can eat what I want.”

At Casa Vittore, the camera caught Rudy sobbing on Goldie’s shoulder. Looking bored, the waitress stood by with our dinner.

BIO: Cindy is a Jersey girl who works in New York City & who talks like Anybody’s from West Side Story. She works out 5-6 days a week, so needs no excuse to drink or do whatever the hell she wants. She loves peanut butter, blood-rare meat, Jack Daniels, and Starbucks coffee (though not usually in the same meal). She’s been published in the usual places, such as Hardboiled, A Twist of Noir, Beat to a Pulp, Out of the Gutter, Mysterical-E, Media Virus, and The New Flesh. She is the editor of the ezine, Yellow Mama. And she’s still a Gemini and a Christian.

From the brilliant opening line right though the razor dialogue you know you're in a Cindy Rosmus story. Gritty, real, like burning ice, they always pack a punch, sounds like you have champagne for breakfast.

Thanks, guys! I had a blast writing this one. And thank my late father for the mushroom/nuclear bomb theory. He really believed that! He was a little weird, & also a writer. Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Had the privilege of pre-publication rteading of this one. I thought then and think now that it's one of Cindy's best and Cindy's best is as good as it gets. Poisoned radioactive mushrooms and lollipops and ghosts that get their due . . . oh my! Cool!